CONTINUED- We got to the military airport terminal bright and early to catch our flight home, only to be told that our flight was canceled until further notice due to snow in Tokyo. And snow it did! We live in a region that generally gets a few inches of snow per YEAR. We got pounded with over forty inches in one WEEK! This is a photo of our house, courtesy of my friend Merri.
I was actually pretty upset, for a silly reason. That reason being the Winter Olympics. I am an Olympic junkie and look forward to sitting on my couch every 4 years to watch the Olympics, specifically, the figure skating. I quickly found that winter games aren’t of big interest in the tropics and I couldn’t find coverage ANYWHERE! (Oh, and the Navy Lodge was fully booked for the weekend, so we were homeless again). We were able to cash in some of our Hilton points for room(s) at the Hilton Orchard Road, so we called a cab to take us there. Inside the cab, was the Bible next to the “Praise the Lord”cap (do you know how RARE that is in Asia?!) I took that as a sign to have a better attitude and to be thankful for what I have. Besides, there are worse places to be stuck, right?!
We purchased access to the executive floor at the Hilton, just in time to have a lovely breakfast. Ahh, life is getting better already….
So the remainder of the day was spent at the rooftop pool, reading any figure skating articles I could find online.
They also had afternoon tea and heavy hors d’oeuvres/drinks at night. Definitely worth the money!
The pool deck had an amazing view at night too!
We called for our flight information and were now told that there would not be a flight out until Wednesday of the following week, that was 4 more days! What to do?
We wandered around Orchard Road again that evening and discussed our options of how to spend the next few days.We looked into several options, including taking a commercial flight home, but the best (and cheapest) option we came up with was going to Krabi, Thailand for a few days. It was last minute, and more spontaneous than we are, but we booked the next flight to Thailand.
So, armed with our winter coats and a suitcase full of dirty clothes we headed to Thailand!
Our decision was so last minute, we didn’t have time to book a hotel before arriving. We also didn’t take into account that it was a Saturday night and Valentine’s Day weekend. Oops! Rooms were expensive and hard to find, especially one that slept 4 people! Finally arrived and got checked in.
Another open air lobby, another welcome drink.
The pool at this hotel was interesting. It was basically like a river that snaked through the hotel grounds. Therefore, every bottom level room was poolside. It was a neat design.
We walked the town a bit after check-in.
We finally found the water, just in time for sunset. Beautiful!
The tide was very low. (Those little dots on the horizon are people.)
On the walk home, the girls ordered a banana pancake from a food cart, this was my favorite thing yet. She sliced the banana and laid it on a thin dough, called roti (kind of a cross between naan and a tortilla). Then she fried it up and the finishing touch was a spread of Nutella. Yum!
I ordered one with a thin layer of egg in the middle, then she topped it with sweetened condensed milk and a sprinkle of sugar. It was SO good! A great way to end the night!
More to come……